Part 24 (1/2)
”You'll like this.” From between the packet and its clear wrapper, Shaun pulled a fat joint. Andy hadn't smoked pot but he'd seen kids at his school do it, walking home after cla.s.s, and he knew what it smelled like.
”No. You really can't smoke that in here. My mum would smell it.”
”I'll bet she's an old doper, your mum,” put in Joe with a sn.i.g.g.e.r. ”She looks like it.”
Andy was past responding to insults. He just wanted them out of his house. ”Look, take it in the garden, then. You can smoke anything you want out there.”
”Okay,” said Shaun, his capitulation easier than Andy had expected. ”Let's see this garden, then. Give us the grand tour.”
Andy let them through the kitchen and down the cracked concrete steps. Light from the kitchen window spilled out onto the barren expanse of seared ground. There was an old push mower in the shed at the bottom of the garden, which Andy had used since he was old enough to manage it, but with the end-of-summer heat there was no gra.s.s left to cut. Some broken bricks marked out a little patio area, where he'd placed the plastic stacker chairs his mum had brought home from the pub. And in a corner by the steps, a trowel and the bag of potting soil he'd used to plant Nadine's geraniums.
Shaun lit the joint with a Bic, the sudden flare of light reflected in his flat, dark eyes. The distinctively sweet smoke filled the air as Shaun took a puff and handed the joint to Joe.
The thought of Nadine had made Andy feel reckless again. Why shouldn't he try it, if there was no one to care what he did?
When Joe handed him the joint, he took it and drew the smoke in carefully, not wanting to cough.
”You have to inhale and then hold it, baby boy,” said Shaun, watching him.
Andy counted to himself, as if he was holding his breath in the swimming pool. Finally, he released the smoke and let it billow away from him. ”Nothing to it. I don't believe there's really anything in this.” He took another puff and held it, then another. The boys watched him, grinning. ”What?” said Andy. ”I don't feel any-” Suddenly, the top of his head went all odd and buzzy, and the world seemed to recede to a distance. He heard Shaun and Joe laughing, but his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth.
”Some s.h.i.+t, yeah?” said Joe. ”This didn't come from the shop on the Parade.” He took the joint and drew on it, then held it out to Andy again with a giggle. ”Here. Take another hit.”
Andy managed to shake his head and back away. ”No, man. I feel-I don't want-”
”What's that?” Taking the joint from Joe's fingers, Shaun wandered towards the dilapidated fence that separated Andy's garden from Nadine's. ”Someone having a party?”
Andy heard it then, music, coming from next door. They all moved towards the sound, as if drawn by magnets.
”No, it's just my neigh-” Andy stopped, trying to place the song. The slight breeze that had come up with the sunset s.h.i.+fted, bringing the honeyed vocal to them. Sinatra. ”Fly Me to the Moon.” His dad had had an old Best of Sinatra alb.u.m. Buried now, under the rock and pop, but Andy had liked it when he was little. Sometimes his mum had played it when he had trouble sleeping.
”Some party,” said Joe. ”Wonder who she's got over for that.” There was a familiarity in the way he said ”she” that made the hair rise on Andy's neck.
”What do you-”
”Let's see, why don't we?” Shaun had found the loose board in the fence, the one Andy had been meaning to repair. It creaked as Shaun pulled on it and the nails gave way. The board came free, taking the next one with it.
They could see through the gap now. Nadine's flat, unlike Andy and his mum's, was one bedroom rather than two, and all on one level. Both kitchen and bath were on the back of the house, overlooking the garden. The curtains were pulled wide on the kitchen windows, the door to the garden propped open to let in any breath of air.
Nadine stood in the kitchen, illuminated as if she were on a screen, still wearing the poppy-splashed dress. She held a full gla.s.s of wine in her hand, and slowly she began to dance, twirling and swaying as Sinatra sang. Her voice, sweet and clear, drifted out to them as she joined in on the chorus.
”f.u.c.k me,” said Shaun. ”If it isn't our b.l.o.o.d.y French mistress. I thought she looked familiar.” He elbowed Joe in the ribs. ”Are my eyes deceiving me, mate?”
”It's her.” Joe sounded a little uneasy. ”But look, man, we should go. I don't want to get in any tr-”
”French mistress?” Andy hissed. ”What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?”
”She's the upper-form French teacher at our school.” Shaun was almost crowing. ”She started last term. Mrs. Drake, the merry widow. We haven't had her cla.s.s yet, but we've heard about her. She's hot, hot, hot-much too hot to be an old bag of a teacher.” He stepped through the gap in the fence into Nadine's garden, and they followed as if tethered.
”No, you're lying,” said Andy. He felt very strange. The joint had gone out and he smelled burning paper.
”We heard she was giving French lessons to morons over the summer.” Shaun put his arm round Andy's shoulders and gave him a squeeze. ”What's she been up to with you, eh, Andrew? Tutoring you in the finer French arts?”
”b.u.g.g.e.r off.” Andy squirmed out of his grasp and shoved at him. ”Don't talk about her that way. And shut up. She'll hear you.”
”Yeah, lay off, Shaun,” said Joe, coming unexpectedly to Andy's defense. ”She's nice. She spoke to me once, in the hall.”
”Ooh, lucky you.” Shaun's voice was suddenly vicious as he turned to Joe. ”Fancy the French teacher, do you, Joe?”
The music stopped. They all looked back to the windows, and Andy realized he was holding his breath. Nadine disappeared from view for a moment; then, as she came back into the kitchen, the record began again.
”She likes that old c.r.a.p, doesn't she?” said Shaun. ”I wonder why.”
Andy suddenly knew, without being quite sure how. The song reminded her of Marshall, her dead husband. She was dancing for him.
They watched, mesmerized, as she moved from the kitchen into the bathroom, becoming an indistinct silhouette behind the frosted gla.s.s of the bathroom window. She bent, and they heard the splash and gurgle in the garden pipe as she turned on the taps in the bath. Then she reappeared in the murky gla.s.s, a dark shape, and lifted her arms in a fluid movement.
”She's taken off her dress,” breathed Joe.
”Well, go on, then.” Shaun took the cider bottle from Joe and gave him a shove. ”You want to see bathing beauty? The door's open. Just walk in and have a peek. If she sees you, you can say you were visiting Andy here and you just came in for a gla.s.s of water.”
”You're crazy.” Joe's voice was high. ”No way I'm doing that.”
”You leave her alone,” said Andy, but he had trouble forming the words. His limbs felt heavy, unresponsive.
Shaun turned on him, the glint of malice in his eyes visible even in the dimness. ”And you shut up. This is none of your business now.” He put his hand on Joe's shoulder and squeezed until Joe grimaced with pain. ”I want to see you go in.”
”Shaun, please, I don't want to.”
Stepping back, Shaun studied him as if he were a specimen on a lab table. ”I said, I want to see you go in. If you don't, I'll tell everyone at school what your dad does to you.”
”No! You promised.” Joe was crying now. ”You can't-”
”Leave him the f.u.c.k alone,” Andy tried to shout, but his words came out in a croak. The effects of the pot seemed to be getting stronger now.
”You going to make me?” With his free hand, Shaun grabbed the front of Andy's T-s.h.i.+rt and swung him hard into the fence. The back of Andy's head hit the boards with a smack and his knees buckled.
He must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he saw was Joe, moving as stiffly as a man going to his execution, walking in Nadine's open door. The music had stopped.
Then there was a scream, and the shattering of gla.s.s.
It was dark by the time Melody reached Putney. She pulled up and sat for a moment, watching the green-gold light spilling through the gla.s.s panes in Doug's front door. The colors made her think of the way she'd imagined Lothlrien, the enchanted wood in Tolkien's novels. Not that she'd tell Doug that. Not at the moment, anyway.
What was she going to say?
She'd talked to Gemma as they'd ridden from Whitechapel back to Brixton on the tube, telling her about her interview with Nick at the Seven Stars. ”It wasn't just an omission, what Andy told me about the bloke he hit in the pub,” she'd finished miserably. ”It was an outright lie. He knew him.”
”That doesn't mean it has any connection with these murders,” Gemma had said. ”We've ruled Andy out, and partly on your own evidence. I've a copy of Ras.h.i.+d's report right here”-she'd tapped her bag-”and he's quite definite about the time of Shaun Francis's death. Not only were you with Andy at the Twelve Bar, there were dozens of other witnesses.”
”Yes, but-he's involved in all this somehow, and I-I think I've made a huge fool of myself.” She'd shaken her head as Gemma started to speak. ”It's not just hurt pride. I'm worried about him. I think something is terribly wrong, and I can't talk to him about it.”